I was supposed to be riding a 200km brevet today, however the last BOM forecast on friday promised 38c+ on the route - coupled with a severe fire warning, so as the organiser, I cancelled the ride. Too risky.

As a consolation a few of the local riders planned to ride early, stay by the coast and head in the opposite direction for quick 100km before the heat hit.

We enjoyed a bit of warmth early on as the sun rose, but cloud cover eased the burn and by the time we were at Bald Hill it was remarkably cool with a north westerly wind blowing with some vigour. We dropped down into the RNP, which is generally nice and cool, climb up to Waterfall and after a rest turn to head back down and out. Then the bloody southerly change comes through just as we get out of the park at 9.30am. Temperatures are now down to low 20s but the gusty southerly is smack in our face, making for a long hard slog back home. There was also quite a bit of smoke coming up from the Shoalhaven fire with the wind which made it asthmatic and long and hard.

As it turns out, it would have been the coldest Tallowa Dam ride in living memory, (Nowra temps didn't get above 25c) and with a tailwind on the way home

oldnewby wrote:First big ride for the year, 171km. Needed a training ride before alpine classic in 2 weeks. Second longest ride I've ever done, and I'm a little bit more confident about finishing the 200 classic now

bosvit wrote:No ride till Tuesday so will have to play catch up this week, unlike that Lisa chick who is smashing it atm

Yeah well that Lisa chick is off the bike for 4 days after Thursday so she is hitting the road while she can...flying to NZ for 4 days so there will be no riding I am trying to build a buffer to make up for the time away

Welcome aboard jham66, and congrats on new baby, is that on the way or here now?

grantw wrote:

oldnewby wrote:First big ride for the year, 171km. Needed a training ride before alpine classic in 2 weeks. Second longest ride I've ever done, and I'm a little bit more confident about finishing the 200 classic now

Just read your post in AAC thread, 171km and 4200m! That's awesome!!

That's massive oldnewby, sounds like your more than ready for the Classic, you'd even be ready for the Extreme, you managed a similar amount of climbing. Don't know that I'll get to do anything close to that in my training. Cut my climb of Macquarie Pass a little short today when I started entering the fog and realised I didn't have lights on the bike. Did another little climb on the way home to make up for it though and got he 1000m I was aiming for.

cheers sblack, you doing the AAC? What distance?All I could think of as I got past 130-140km of the ride I did on the weekend was "I'll have this many km's in the legs, and I'll have to climb Mt Buffalo now" ouch!

oldnewby wrote:cheers sblack, you doing the AAC? What distance?All I could think of as I got past 130-140km of the ride I did on the weekend was "I'll have this many km's in the legs, and I'll have to climb Mt Buffalo now" ouch!

Yeah, I'm heading down for the 200, should be my toughest road ride to date, while I've done longer rides I haven't done as much vertically on one ride and I think that hurts more than the extra distance.

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